Maltaverne
by François Mauriac
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Mauriac, the most important writer of the modern French Catholic revival and one of the half-dozen greatest European novelists of this century. Mauriac is the moral historian and chronicler of a region: the pine barrens of southwestern France called Les Landes with its regional capital at Bordeaux; of a social class, the upper Bourgeoisie who live in big gloomy houses in Bordeaux but often have their wealth -- or once had it -- from the relentless harvesting of pit props and pine resin on show more large forest estates like Maltaverne, which they constantly plot to make larger; of the spiritual condition of this class, whose representatives are at once cruelly materialistic and deeply religious according to the rigors of the Jansenist conscience, people both clannish and selfish and yet poignantly human in the intensity of their loves and hates. They are without what is called "Gallic charm," and some of them are monsters whom only God (and Mauriac) could love, and this is surely as Mauriac intends. show lessTags
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Mauriac's last novel, published when he was 84, is set like most of his other work in the Landes of S. France.
When the story opens, Alain, the narrator, is a teenager, living on a timber estate with his brother and mother. The latter comes across as dominant character, who is planning for him to marry the despised 'Louse'- the unattractive but potentially wealthy little daughter of a fellow landowner. We also meet Alain's friend Simon, a peasant youth attending a seminary but thinking of 'getting out'.
As he lives through his late teens, we see Alain experiencing love, querying his beliefs, and finding that he doesn't know everything about people. After a terrible tragedy, we see him aged 22, starting his life as a writer in Paris: 'the show more outcome of all this agony will be a three franc paperback.'
I almost gave up on this halfway through, but it has a BRILLIANT SECOND HALF which brings everything together. show less
When the story opens, Alain, the narrator, is a teenager, living on a timber estate with his brother and mother. The latter comes across as dominant character, who is planning for him to marry the despised 'Louse'- the unattractive but potentially wealthy little daughter of a fellow landowner. We also meet Alain's friend Simon, a peasant youth attending a seminary but thinking of 'getting out'.
As he lives through his late teens, we see Alain experiencing love, querying his beliefs, and finding that he doesn't know everything about people. After a terrible tragedy, we see him aged 22, starting his life as a writer in Paris: 'the show more outcome of all this agony will be a three franc paperback.'
I almost gave up on this halfway through, but it has a BRILLIANT SECOND HALF which brings everything together. show less
Coming-of-age-novel of an adolescent being captured between money and religion, between Catholicism and a new morality. Discrepancies which characterize the 20th century.
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Author Information
274+ Works 5,831 Members
François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux, France on October 11, 1885. He was a novelist, essayist, poet, and playwright. He studied at the University of Bordeaux and the École Nationale des Chartes at Paris before leaving to focus on writing. His first published work, a volume of poems entitled Joined Hands, was published in 1909. He was better show more known as a novelist. His novels include Young Man in Chains, The Stuff of Youth, The Kiss to the Leper, The Desert of Love, Vipers' Tangle, The Frontenac Mystery, The Unknown Sea, and A Woman of the Pharisees. His plays include Asmodée and The Poorly Loved. Mauriac resisted the Nazi invaders and the Vichy regime consistently and courageously during World War II. He was elected to the French Academy in 1933 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952. He died on September 1, 1970. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Maltaverne
- Original title
- Un adolescent d'autrefois
- Alternate titles
- Maltaverne: A Novel About a Young Man of Long Ago
- Original publication date
- 1969
- People/Characters
- Alain Gajac; Simon Duberc; Jeannette Seris 'the Louse'; Marie
- Important places
- Maltaverne, les Landes
- Epigraph
- I write otherwise than I speak, I speak otherwise than I think, I think otherwise than I ought to think, and so on into the deepest heart of darkness (KAFKA)
- First words
- I am unlike other boys. If I were like other boys, at seventeen I should go shooting with Laurent my elder brother, and Duberc, our bailiff, and Simon Duberc his younger son who is an abbe and who at this time of day ought to... (show all) be at vespers, and Prudent Duberc, his brother, who prompts Simon to make his bow to the cure.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She came in at her usual time, she sat down, she studied the menu as though she did not know she was going to order an 'assiette anglaise' and then she raised her eyes, she looked at me and she smiled.
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Statistics
- Members
- 89
- Popularity
- 361,361
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.21)
- Languages
- English, French, Hungarian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 12
